Jeph Loeb Reveals Upcoming Marvel Animated Projects
By Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell on Jan 14, 2013 with Comments 6
Marvel’s head of television, Jeph Loeb, recently appeared on a podcast where he talked and teased upcoming Marvel animated projects. Some we knew about and some come as big surprises. The writer and producer talked about Marvel’s 2013 slate of animated projects on the Word Balloon podcast earlier this week. In an incredibly extensive chat, Loeb touched on his upcoming Nova comic as well as his love of movie trailers. The real juicy bits came later in the interview.
Loeb revealed that Marvel has 15 projects in the animated world in various stages of development and production. Some of the 15 are smaller projects like the Marvel Mash-Ups that appear at the end of the Disney XD shows, but Loeb didn’t say how many were full-length features. He did say that after the forthcoming direct to DVD anime release Iron Man: Rise of the Technovore, that Marvel and Sony would work on a Punisher/Black Widow DVD film. No word if that will also be an anime feature, but I would say that it is. Speaking of Rise of the Technovore, it was recently reported that Norman Reedus will be voicing Frank Castle in the film. Maybe he’ll also be popping up for the Punisher/Black Widow flick, who knows?
Marvel’s top TV man also revealed that there are a few Marvel Knight Animation projects in the works. Those would be the animated comics Marvel release on DVD, like the recent Joss Whedon X-Men story. Loeb said that the motion comic will be a Wolverine and Weapon X story called “Tomorrow Dies Today.” It is an adaptation of a story by Jason Aaron that features Wolverine and Deathlok. Loeb said that the story is one of the comics picked to be part of the group, so expect more news soon.
One of the other interesting bits from the podcast was Loeb talking about the cancellation of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and the new series set to take its place- Avengers Assemble. Loeb said that Assemble is made to speak to and have a closer feel to the live-action movie released last summer. It will be fun and have the same epic scope as the Whedon film. Loeb also puts a lot of fans at ease when he states that Earth’s Mightiest transitions into Assembles and that everything that happened in EMH has happened in Assemble. The writer says that EMH relied on “comic book lore and mythos” but Assemble will push into the movie genre style of storytelling. It will be one and done stories that keep the show moving forward.
Loeb stated that research showed people are more committed to the so-called “one and done” stories compared to the long seralized stories that rely on season long arcs and multi-part episodes. He said that any story that starts with “Previously On” already alienates a large portion of your audience. Besides the research, the network said that shorter self-contained stories work better.
You can listen to the full podcast where Loeb covers a variety of topics by clicking here. In the course of an hour and a half talk Loeb covered an impressive amount of ground. We have several new direct to DVD releases to look forward to as well as some new motion comics. What do you think about the new movies? How about Loeb’s Avengers show comments?
Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell
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Source : WordBalloon.Blogspot.Com
Filed Under: Featured • TV Shows • TV Shows News
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This is probably a personal attack, but Eff Loeb.
Has Loeb ever watched an actual good tv show? They all have overarching story arcs and character development, you know, the things that made EMH an amazing animated show. “Research.” Right.
“people are more committed to the so-called “one and done” stories compared to the long seralized stories that rely on season long arcs and multi-part episodes.”
That… just doesn’t make sense. You become committed to long serialized stories because of the fact that they take place over long periods of time. Those require commitment to appreciate. “One-and-done” stories do not. How is it possible to be more committed to something that requires less commitment than the other thing?
F**k you Loeb, go paint a bullseye on your head so we can make this simple.
He really did kill a good thing. AEMH became so good, both in terms of storytelling and even animation. The show became downright Disney-esque in terms of animation quality!
But I’ve no doubt he’s right. From the perspective of those of us who seek out quality storytelling, a dumbed down show no doubt gets higher ratings, especially when the audience is millions of kids. Just look at his “Ultimate Spider-Man” show, and all the other unwatchable crap on Disney’s networks.
At the same time, an animated series’ initial lifespan is expensive and short. The payback comes in airing it repeatedly for years or even decades. It also serves as an idea factory for filmmakers, just as comic books do, which is a primary reason Disney bought Marvel. Loeb could have left an awesome work of art alone, and focused on other stuff. But now I fear we’re going to have “one and dumb” Avengers episodes.
I would like to know when the show will air.